[chime]

I was just looking at Stackmob last week as a potential backend for my next project. I had originally planned on using Parse but with their acquisition, I felt uncertain about their future. With Stackmob going the same route, is there any decent backend I could use reliably?

[janj]

I've been completely reliant on Parse as a backend for a long time. The acquisition made me nervous but I've been reassured and am now comfortable with Parse as a long term solution for a few reasons. For one, the development of the platform has not stalled at all since the acquisition. I don't think you can find a more complete and enjoyable backend solution than Parse.

[Encosia]

Azure Mobile Services is comparable for the basic backend service and push notifications (and isn't in danger of being aquihired away any time soon): http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/solutions/mobile/

You expect something enterprisey if you haven't played around with Azure lately, but you can work entirely in JavaScript on the server-side (powered by Node) and there's good support for iOS, Android, Ruby, Python, etc.

[shawkinaw]

Take a look at FatFractal (http://fatfractal.com). Better functionality and usability than Parse or StackMob, especially the Datagraph. Full disclosure: I work for FF.

[gimenete]

You can use http://backbeam.io It supports mobile-only development with SDKs for iOS and Android as well as web development and server-side logic.

Disclaimer: I work in the company behind it. If you have any questions we will be glad to help you out. By the way, the SDKs are Open Source and we are working on a "community" release of the backend for our customers to not be afraid of the vendor-locking.